TV Recap: Fringe - The Equation

This week’s episode of Fringe was the best since the second. There was suspense and drama and a minimal amount of conspiracy theories. All that plus, the evil Agent Broyles hardly made an appearance. I’m seriously giddy. It all starts when a man is driving with his son on a late, rainy evening. He decides it’s a great idea to pull over and help a seemingly desperate woman whose car won’t start. Okay. Has this guy never seen a scary movie or even the show he’s on right now. Whatever. He gets out to help the woman and when he looks under her hood, he’s hypnotized by a series of red and green lights. When he finally comes to, the woman and her car are gone. So is his son. Time to call in our sometimes favorite pattern busters.

This time, Broyles doesn’t hold back any information from Dunham. Is he finally starting to trust the woman he recruited? According to Broyles, there have been multiple abductions with the same exact scenario by the same woman. The only difference between the others and the boy are the other were accomplished academics. When Dunham talks to the boy’s father, though, she finds out that he had a gift of his own.

The boy was hit by a car (which also killed his mother) some time ago and slipped into a coma for six days. When he woke up, he could suddenly play the piano brilliantly. Not only that, he also started composing. There was one piece he became obsessed with but could never finish. All of this sounds eerily familiar to Walter. He remembers a man he was friends with in the institution, Dash, telling a similar story. He would talk of a woman who took him to a secret place and made him work on a particular equation but he could never finish it. Hmm. We all know that music is based on math, right? Well, Dunham didn’t know but that’s cool.

Walter and Peter deduce that Dash’s equation and the boy’s piece are the same exact problem and both of them are stumped at the same part. Guess their abductions are related. Dunham also learns that each of the abductees goes insane about a week after being taken. Dash up and killed his wife because the equation drove him so crazy. Great. So now there’s a missing kid and a time crunch and the only way to find the kid is to get inside the mind of a criminally insane man.

That proves to be even harder than anticipated because the psychiatrist who runs the institution, a prickly little man who is definitely bad, won’t allow Dunham to question Dash. He will, however, allow Walter to come back as a familiar face and ask Dunham’s questions. No problem there, I’m sure. Walter agrees to it, though, because he wants to save the little boy.

Walter tentatively walks through the institution doors to question Dash. When he finds Dash, though, he says he doesn’t know anything about a woman and flashing light. Walter must be mistaken. The one thing Walter knows Dash won’t forget is the equation and he writes it down for him. When Dash sees the equation, he freaks out and starts screaming that he doesn’t do math anymore. Walter barely grabs Dash’s coat when the psychiatrist and a nurse come over and give him a sedative. Not Dash, they give it to Walter. I told you he was evil. The psychiatrist then tells Peter and Dunham that he’s readmitting Walter to the institution and they’ll have to get a court order to have him released. Poor Walter.

The one good thing about Walter being inside is that he’s able to talk to Dash again. This time, he doesn’t let Dash off the hook. In a brilliant moment, he convinces Dash to tell him that the woman took him to a dungeon at a red castle. Sure, that seems like reliable information. The really, really bad thing about Walter being inside is that the guy who haunts him is back. Who is this elusive man? Walter. No, the guy haunting Walter is Walter. He actually sees himself around the hospital. I don’t know if that’s been happening the entire time or if this is a new development but it was really strange and didn’t go with the flow of the story. Sorry, just had to put that out there. Anyways, Dash’s admission helped more than expected.

Dunham and Peter had already tracked down the woman. She had supposedly died 10 years earlier but her body was never discovered. Now she went by a different name and was really close by in Massachusetts. Dunham was covering the entire area when she got the call from Peter about the red castle and dungeon. Wouldn’t you know it, there’s an abandoned red carousel/playground in the neighborhood. Dunham and Charlie go down into the belly of building (which looks more like an underground city it’s so big) and split up to cover more territory. I refer back to my previous comments about the dad and scary movies. Still, Dunham finds the boy and is trying to free him when the crazy lady turns up and there’s an insane fight. These women are either enormously tough or they both throw really weak punches.

Dunham chases the woman into the hallway but then green and red lights start flashing. The next thing Dunham knows, she’s standing alone in a hallway with Charlie behind her. The boy is safe, at least, but the woman is history. Well, not exactly history. She ends up meeting with Agent Broyles’ friend. You know, the one who wanted to know about ‘Little Hill’ and giving him the equation. They plug it into some computer and then place an apple inside this huge machine. There’s some shaking and weird sound effects and when the guy reaches in to see if the equation worked, he pulls out an apple. But it worked! I don’t really get that. I rewatched it quite a few times and it still looked like the same apple. Whatever. I guess we can’t get away from the pattern the entire episode. After they discover that it worked, the woman really is history. The guy shoots her.

Dunham and Peter did get their court order for Walter so he’s out but he’s acting kind of strange. He now wants his own hotel room and more space from Peter. Maybe he’s just realizing that he might really be crazy and trying to normalize himself. Guess you’ll have to watch to find out. Tricky little TV creators. They know if there’s even an inkling of a mystery they have you. They’ll have me, too, if they keep the episodes as entertaining as this one.